The Texas Medical Disclosure Panel (TMDP) has adopted changes to two informed consent forms, which will take effect at the beginning of 2020.
The panel made amendments to its Disclosure and Consent for Medical Care and Surgical Procedures form and its Disclosure and Consent for Hysterectomy form.
Beginning Jan. 1, a patient must sign the new version of the applicable form before a physician provides the care or procedure to have it presumed in a court proceeding that the physician obtained informed consent.
The amended, adopted versions of the two forms, each in both English and Spanish, were published in the Texas Register on June 21. The 2020 English version of the medical care/surgical procedures form is available here, and the Spanish version is available here. The 2020 hysterectomy form is available here in English and here in Spanish.
The presumption physicians receive in court by having a patient sign the form is rebuttable in a court of law; if the patient did sign the applicable form prior to the care or procedure, the patient would have to prove in court that the information he or she received was insufficient. But if the physician does not get the patient’s signature on the informed-consent form beforehand, and the patient alleges that the physician didn’t make the required disclosures, the physician has the burden of proving he or she obtained proper informed consent.
For the rest of this year, physicians must use the current versions of these forms to obtain informed consent and benefit from the presumption in court.
Forms for both 2019 and 2020 are available on the Department of State Health Services' website
Last Updated On
January 02, 2020
Originally Published On
July 19, 2019